


When You Were Made

by unitchiefprentiss



Series: To Build a Home [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M, may become a series?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22687330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unitchiefprentiss/pseuds/unitchiefprentiss
Summary: Post 15x07, "Rusty." Emily considers Andrew's offer to move to Colorado, and finally starts the life she's always wanted.
Relationships: Andrew Mendoza/Emily Prentiss
Series: To Build a Home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653055
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	When You Were Made

**February 2020**

Long after the dishes are done and Keely has gone to bed, Emily and Andrew sit on the couch together, cuddled up under a blanket while faint music plays in the background. Emily is glad she stayed behind; glad she finally got to meet Keely. Now that she’s here, everything feels _right_. It's almost like she's always been here; like she's never known anything different. 

She knows now what she wants to do, and even though it will be hard to completely uproot her life, it’s not like it’s the first time she’s done it. She won’t move soon, she will give it a few more months. Now that she knows she and Andrew can make the distance work; that he’s all in. She's all in, too. And that scares the shit out of her, but in the best way possible. 

There’s just one thing she definitely needs to tell him before she starts making those plans. One thing she hasn’t told anyone. It’s an even bigger reason for her distant behavior with not just Andrew, but the team as well. Why she's been so distracted. 

She’d wanted to wait just a little longer to tell him, but she feels like now is the right moment. 

She takes his hand in hers and gently rubs her thumb across the back of it, looking up from where her head had been laying on his chest. She smiles softly, and he smiles back. She loves his smile; how he often smiles so big it makes his eyes close. It's one of her favorite things about him. It makes her feel safe. 

She starts to speak, but he beats her to it. 

“So,” He says softly. “We’re good?” 

Emily looks up and kisses him. “Yes.” She says confidently. “I was actually just about to talk to you about this.”

“Oh?” He pulls her closer and wraps an arm around her shoulder. 

“I want this. With you. A home, a family.” She breathes the last word almost as if she's afraid to say it.

“Yeah? I want that, too. Does this mean you’re going to move?” he raises his eyebrows, hopeful. 

She nods. “Not right away. I want to get things squared away with the team. But yes. Yes, I want to move in. If you’ll have me.” 

“There’s absolutely nothing else in the world I want more.” He tells her, that giant smile beaming across his face again. It makes her smile too. 

After a moment ofcomfortable silence, Emily speaks up again. 

“There’s something else…” She says, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. 

“What’s up?” He asks her, gently rubbing her shoulder with his thumb. 

“I…last month I thought I was pregnant.” She says, breaking eye contact and biting her lip. 

Andrew smiles, but it falls when he sees her face. “You- you did?” 

“Yeah.” Emily nods. “I’m not. I just… _really_ thought I was. It’s funny, I thought the idea of a surprise pregnancy at 49 would scare the shit out of me. But the test was negative, and I was…disappointed, to say the least.” 

Andrew rubs her arm gently, pulling her a little closer into his side, letting her know he’s still listening. She takes a breath and 

“So I went to the doctor just to see if it’s even…possible.” He waits patiently, not wanting to speak until she gets it all out—he can tell she’s been keeping this to herself for awhile. 

“It is. Somehow. I don’t really know how it could be, especially after—“ She cuts herself off. 

She’s of course told Andrew about everything. What happened in Italy, the Doyle _situation_. 

She was so sure that table leg had done irreparable damage But, apparently, the stake had been just a few centimeters away from completely destroying her uterus. 

“Is that something you want?” Andrew asks. 

She looks at him with teary eyes. “I…think so. Yes.” 

He smiles, so big it makes his eyes crinkle at the corners again. “Okay.” He says easily, like it’s the most logical thing in the world. 

“Really?” She asks, feeling her eyes fill with tears. 

“Of course, Emily. I love you. I’d love to have a baby with you.” He tells her. 

“I just—well, Keely’s a teenager now. I didn’t know if you’d want any more kids.” Emily says. 

“You’re the only other person since Keely’s mom that I’ve ever even fleetingly thought about having another kid with.” Andrew says honestly. 

“I—have never been with anyone I wanted to have a baby with,” She realizes. “I thought it was too late by the time we met.” She says softly. “

He takes her hand in his, kisses it softly. “If that’s what you want, I’m all in, Emily.” He tells her, and she believes him. She’s never felt like this about anyone, never trusted anyone the way she trusts him. 

\- - - - 

For the next few months, they stick to their monthly visits back and forth. They aren’t necessarily trying for a baby yet, but they aren’t _not_ trying, either. By the time Emily moves just as spring is fading in to summer, they seriously start trying. Once Emily is settled and the stress of moving is no longer weighing on her, it happens. She was so sure it would take longer, that they’d need to see a fertility specialist at the very least, but no, it happens without all of that. 

She suspects for a week before she has the nerve to buy a pregnancy test. She almost doesn’t tell Andrew. Almost decides to wait until he and Keely have left the house so she can take it alone. But then, she realizes, she doesn’t have to do it alone. She never has to be alone again. So, she tells him, and while Keely is at a friend’s house that weekend, she takes the test. 

She anxiously paces the hallway while she waits for the timer to go off. Andrew walks with her, his hand in hers, squeezing it occasionally. 

When it’s time, they look together. It’s positive. 

Emily can hardly wrap her brain around it. She’d always thought someday she’d have a family, but as the years went on and her job got more and more demanding, leaving her with more and more scars, she had shelved that desire. 

She’s not sure what she did to get this lucky. 

“I don’t want to get too excited until I see my doctor. Just…you know. In case.” She whispers, afraid to get too excited too early. Andrew leans down and kisses her forehead comfortingly. 

“That makes sense. Do you want me to make it for you?” He asks. 

She looks up at him. “No, that’s okay. I’ll call first thing Monday. Do you think—what about Keely?” Emily asks suddenly. 

Andrew furrows his brow. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean…I know now we’ve met, and she seems to like me, and I already love her. But I did just officially move in not long ago. And she starts school in a couple of weeks. I don’t want it to be too much for her too fast. Will a baby be too much for her?” Emily asks. The last thing she wants to do is cause Keely any kind of distress. 

Andrew smiles. “Please. She was asking me long before you guys even met if she was going to get a little sibling out of this.” 

“She was?” Emily asks. Andrew nods. “She always wanted a sibling. It just didn’t really work out with me and her mom, and neither one of us had any more. She’ll be absolutely thrilled.” 

Emily can’t help it, she starts to cry. 

“Would you rather her be upset about it?” Andrew teases. 

She looks up and lightly smacks his chest. “No, you jerk. I just…am really happy. That’s all. I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” He says sincerely. 

As planned, she makes an appointment the following Monday. She gets lucky—there’s a last minute cancellation and she can be seen on her lunch break. Andrew moves his whole day around to be there with her, despite her protests that she could go alone. He doesn’t listen, and he drives her to the office and holds her hand the whole time. She can hardly believe it when the doctor confirms it. She’s pregnant. 

She’s given an entire packet of information, scowls at the doctor when she calls it a “geriatric pregnancy.” 

“It’s just a medical term,” Andrew whispers in her ear. 

She’s warned to keep her stress levels way down, prepared for the likelihood that she’ll have to go on bedrest much earlier than she wants to, that she’ll maybe need to have a c-section. 

Despite Emily’s long running history with not liking nor listening to doctors, she listens. She doesn’t want to mess this up. This might be their only chance. So she listens, she keeps her stress down, she eats the healthiest she’s ever eaten in her life. Despite this, her blood pressure rises more than her doctor would like. She’s put on bed rest just before the start of her third trimester. 

It damn near kills her. 

She learns how to be patient, how to do nothing. 

During this time, Keely really bonds with Emily. She sits with Emily on the bed and has Emily help her with homework, even when she doesn’t need it because she sees how it brightens Emily’s day to feel useful. 

She does everything the doctor asks, and as the cold winter months fade into spring, they welcome a little girl into the world. She’s not sure how they do it, but the team arrives just hours after she has the baby. 

They enter the room all at once, ignoring the “two people at a time” rule. They coo over the tiny baby, each taking turns holding her and gushing over her. 

“What’s her name?” Garcia asks finally, her eyes teary with happiness, handing the baby back to Emily. 

“This,” Emily gestures. “Is Hazel Theodora.” 

“Oh,” Garcia breathes. They hang around for a little longer, no one wants to leave; they’re not sure when they’ll all be back together. As Emily looks around the room, she knows that despite the distance, their little girl has all the love in the world. For the hundredth time, she wonders how she got this lucky. It all had seemed too easy. Moving in with Andrew without a hitch, Keely loving and accepting her so easily, getting pregnant within a year of trying, and havingperfect little girl. 

She ignores that voice in the back of her mind, the one that tells her it’s all going too well, that something bad will follow. It’s been there since she started seeing Andrew, and she’s learned how to tell it to shut up. It’s not easy, and it’s always there, waiting to make it’s presence known. But she’ll keep squashing it. This is the life she deserves, she believes that now. 


End file.
